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Seeing more and more death metal bands do gigs in Finland is more than welcomed. Even though the glorious years of Death metal goes back to the early 90’s, but it is still overwhelming to see some bands don’t give up any inch. Above all Massive Music and its Finnish booking agents have done an utter cult task when arranging this type of tour in Finland.

Death Metal lives!!! At least it is supposed to when the Shadows Of Emissaries’ Curse touring package hit the soil of Finland for three gigs. But frankly the attendance at each gig wasn’t as high as expected. A night before the gig in Helsinki, less than 100 people had bothered crawling in to witness these four bands in Jyvaskyla and even less. Approximately a little bit more than 200 maniacs had entered to see them in Helsinki. Even though these gigs were in the middle of the week, there are plenty of real death metal freaks out there willing to see more brutal bands on the stage. So where were all you as you definitely missed the great night of death metal?

The Greek three piece death metal outfit Sickening Horror kicked the night off by delivering a lesson of how complex and technical death metal is supposed to be played. It was obvious the three piece Greek metallers are influenced by these Floridian technical and kind of jazz oriented bands such as Cynic and Atheist. Although the band was technical and skilled, the less than 30 minute playing time was quite enough. In the long time this might get quite boring.

Even though Sickening Horror may be a little bit unknown for most of readers, several so called bigger names have recruited members to fill up vacancies. For example Rotting Christ picked up George Bokos for the guitar whereas Nile tapped George Kollias to sit behind the drum kit.

GoatWhore conquered the stage after the Greeks. Even though the band has been around for years, for some reasons mostly remained quite in the offside amongst Finnish metal freaks. There were some freaks recognizing the stuff of Goatwhore. Despite the not so fanatical response, the four piece gave a brutal lesson of the newer school meets the old school. The band hammered song by song down to the audience with the rage and had a brutal grip, but at least wasn’t convinced. However GoatWhore sound more energic and lethal on the stage than on albums. The vocalist Ben Falgoust’s demonstration for putting a bullet to the head and showing evil eyes were more basic manners and normal way to refer to lyrics of Goatwhore. Obviously Goatwhore gained more interest here in Finland by doing quite a brutal set.

Melechesh’s gig at Party San was phenomenal and unique last summer. Therefore, knowing them to be tight as well as technical, skilled, and brutal was quite good guess. Even though the band had undergone a temporary change in the line-up, that didn’t have any kind of impact on the band’s playing and stage performance. Before the four piece started and a couple of incences had been placed on the stage, giving a magical atmosphere and of course smell in the venue. After the magical intro followed “Of Mercury and Mercury”. In fact the set mostly consisted of songs from the last two albums of Melechesh. The band combines the oriental music influences and metal approach perfectly and managed to balance them to have the recognizable Melechesh sound. The vocalist/guitarist Asmedi’s personal voice crowned all the magic of Melechesh’music. The four piece appeared to be damn tight and above all, energic on the stage.

Intro

Of Mercury And Mercury

Leper Jerusalem

Deluge of Delusional Dreams

Ladders to Sumeria

Apkallu Counsel

Triangular Tattvic Fire

Rebirth of the Nemesis

Outro

Immolation, being the long time death metal veterans, have soldiered through these years since the first demo released back in 1988. Getting Immolation to Finland for the first time ever was nothing, but remarkable from both Elmu and WCH. The four piece have carved their immortal marks into the death metal scene and unleashed a plenty of nihilistic deadly outputs.

Immolation literally sounded brutal, vicious, and especially razor-deadly sharp. Immolation is definitely not a dead boring live act on the stage, instead it’s the contrary. The band has developed and created the raging vital live appearance on the stage. The guitarist Bob Vigna, who deserves credits for being the real character on the stage, appeared to be extremly relentless with his axe. The man’s fingers moved tremousdouly quick, making insane figures in the air.

Ross Dolan’s voice is still as brutal as hell. He definitely sounds rawer and primitive live than on albums though. Due to his way of growling his lungs out of the body, the whole mic had been covered with some kind of mic protection as snot and sweat were flying all around. Bill Taylor didn’t rage as passionate as Vigna did, but handled his spot with the old school style.

Immolation indeed ruled that night. The New Yorkers’ brutal death metal is still as brutal as it was back in the day.

Passion Kill

Hate’s Plague

Those Left Behind

Swarm of Terror

Lying With Demons

Son of Iniquity

Burn With Jesus

Once Ordained

The Condemned

Father You’re Not A Father

Shadows in the Light

Immolation

World Agony

Bring Them Down

Harnessing Ruin

Once again big thanks to both WCH and Elmu for bringing this touring package to Finland! Both Melechesh and Immolation were outstandingly great and superb. Both the bands are phenomenal on the stage and worth witnessing for sure. But hopefully more these kinds of tours will be seen in Finland even though attendance figures ain’t that high unfortunately.